My
New Years wishes
for all my friends: (From my Facebook page…)
May you avoid any
type of vehicular accidents for the entire year…
May you avoid any
type of social diseases for the entire year…(no, Social Diseases have nothing
to do with Social Media)
May you be
successful at keeping your “secret” files on your computers and phones
well-hidden.
May any diseases,
syndromes, ailments or health issues be cured, or at least not get any worse.
May you find the
perfect ice cream. (Hint: It’s Private Selection Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chip—but
that’s just me…)
May you find the
perfect Love of Your Life. (If you already have, then May you keep them
forever…)
If you sail, then
May you always have freshening winds and following seas.
If you fly, May the
number of safe landings always equal the number of take-offs.
If you ride
motorcycles, May your bones remain unbroken and also your hearts.
To the cops,
firefighters and EMTs, May every shift be ended with a safe trip home.
Happy New Year, my
friends!
Yesterday we did a
few estate sales with our friend Sandy, and she showed up in a 2021 Toyota Rav
4. Her car was in the shop, and this was her loaner from Don Hattan, a local
dealer here in Wichita. Whenever we do sales, I always have my Garmin
programmed ahead of time and the route and order of “visitation” on a pad
because I am tasked with the driving. But I digress. What this is really about
is petty bitching about the vehicle. And I have nothing against Toyota. My
personal truck is a 2010 Tacoma, which I love. One of the reasons I love it is
because it doesn’t have a big screen TV in the middle of the dash, hooked to a
computer that would put the electronics in the space shuttles to shame. I think
this shit has gone far enough. I couldn’t figure out how to turn off all the
“driver assist” bullshit, so it was constantly arguing with me and beeping me
and raising hell with my driving. Apparently, I’m a shitty driver. And I
already knew this. I didn’t need a black Rav 4 to tell me. Constantly. Whenever
it comes time to replace my pickup, if that ever happens (there’s a good chance
it may outlive me) I’m seriously going to be looking at rat rods, survivors and
restorations. If it’s not old enough to have an ash tray, I’m not interested…
Okay, today I did
something I’ll bet NO ONE else can say they did. We were sitting in the living
room, binge-watching Deadwood, when a bird flew past my head and into the front
room. I’m like WTF? In just a minute, there’s a second one! A pair of house
wrens are inside, cruising around my house. We spend a good 40 minutes catching
these two and putting them out on the sunporch, where we have plants and
heaters running. Okay, cool, now where did they get in? I’ve had them in my
basement before and House Wrens are very good at getting inside buildings,
finding their way in and out to hunt spiders and to collect spider web silk,
which they line their nests with. I check my basement and I have a gap by my
sill plate over an inch wide! So I spent some time with wood pieces and foam
insulation closing that up. Not sure I got it completely, but we’ll deal with
that on a warmer day. In the morning, we should have some sunshine and I’ll let
David and Daisy back outside. I really thought wrens migrated. Apparently not…
I’m working on a
list of “old people” things…feel free to contribute. If they are old enough,
old people can use the excuse that they lived through the Depression, and
therefore they are very “frugal,” another word for “cheap…”
We save the napkins
from fast-food orders and use them at other meals.
We often use paper
plates more than once. As an example, you just had toast on a paper plate, and
you dump the crumbs in the trash and toss the plate on the counter to use
again.
Some people rinse
out zip-lock bags and reuse them. I have even seen people with a collection of
“drying racks” for their zip-lock bags, made out of coat hangers, bent into
creative shapes to hold the bags open.
I save old jeans for
yard work. They are the ones with rips and patches and paint on them, that I
won’t wear in public. Young people pay extra for these and call them cool and
fashionable.
I
have “mowing
shoes,” that are no longer fit to wear “out in public.” They look like shit and
I seldom tie them anymore. Most comfortable shoes I own…I have 5 or 6 pairs of
shoes I never wear at all, but they’re “too good to throw away…”